Take Notice

Welcome back to our Wellbeing initiative for our second installment. For this week we will be paying attention to “Take Notice” as a skill that increases our self-awareness of what is immediately happening both physically and mentally within and around us.

“Have you noticed that the 24 hour news feed is primarily filled with negative content which raises our concern about issues beyond our control “?

“Have you noticed that much of today’s dissatisfaction levels seem to stem from an advertising fueled focus on what we are lacking rather than an appreciation of all the wonderful aspects of life for which we could be grateful”.

Interestingly taking notice and ownership of these thought processes is very much within our control. This process of enhancing our self-knowledge and our understanding of those around us is depicted very well in the illustration below whereby we note that the physical behaviours which most of us display in day to day life are really the tip of the iceberg, as what is rarely visible are the underlying drivers of those behaviours … our filters.

Many of our characteristics below the “water line” can be the result of embedded prejudices and experiences (good and bad), which are drivers of how we re-present the external occurrences within our internal thinking.

The challenge here is for us to recognise what we are thinking, when we are thinking it and by taking notice we can then understand that our thoughts are just actually our interpretation of events and not necessarily representative of reality. This is how we become “mindful” and “present”.

As a final piece in the jigsaw of “Wellbeing” we then become a “witness” rather than a victim of our own thoughts and by doing so we “Take Notice” and are empowered to respond to external factors in a controlled fashion.

When we appreciate this process personally it allows us to create a more meaningful environment and understanding of ourselves and even more particularly those around us… a true Wellbeing outcome.